


Extraction

by eos_3



Series: Stained Lips, Sealed Tongue - 30 Kisses Sakura/Sai [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: 30 Kisses Challenge, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dr. Haruno, F/M, Mission Fic, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-27
Updated: 2009-08-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 04:23:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2837840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eos_3/pseuds/eos_3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sai is down, and the rest of their team is missing, and Sakura's not sure if she can hold the bandits off before they're completely overwhelmed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Extraction

**Author's Note:**

> For my 30_kisses set, prompt #3 Jolt!
> 
> This one came from my need to see Sai take a hit for Sakura, since around the time they first met he nearly let her fall to her death. Also I wanted to have them all in ANBU gear, so this is what you get.

Slammed into from behind, all of the air rushed out of Sakura's lungs, another body pushing hers onto the hard, leaf-strewn ground. The shock made her drop her blood-slicked tanto. Following this, came the overhead rush of what looked and sounded like several quivers full of arrows, hissing by and thunking into the trees and soil around them.

"What the hell, Sai?" she growled, looking over her shoulder. His face pressed hard into her back, masked, and she could only see his dark hair. She had a bad feeling again, after a night of them.

Whoever had gotten the intel, or at least whoever had written the briefing for this mission, handily left out about forty men and neglected to mention their leader was a tactician to rival Konoha's best. Small rogue border clans, with their old blood-feuds and occasional clever ideas, had always plagued the Fire Country and its leaders. At first they had thought that was what they were dealing with.

These guys had to be pretty strong to kidnap the Daimyo's grandson in the first place, but when the abduction originally happened there was no indication that they had such a large force to back them up. They didn't look or act like a bunch of poorly outfitted, unskilled thugs, but they didn't have any clan or unit markings. It made her think they were hired soldiers, not a bunch of attention-seeking hooligans from the fringes.

Kakashi hadn't said anything when they'd first made contact, but if she'd noticed there was something off about them, he'd probably already figured out their country of origin and who their grandmothers were.

It didn't change the fact that they were split up from the other half of their team. At some point, she and Sai got caught in an environmental genjutsu, that Kakashi and Sasuke, each with their Sharingan, had been able to completely ignore. Now they were nowhere in sight.

"You were looking the wrong way, Hag," Sai said, in a tightly controlled manner, which alerted her to the fact he was in a great deal of pain. She'd been trying to catch up with the others just like he had, it was dark and the other two men on their team weren't exactly known for leaving a trail. Kakashi should have noticed by now that they'd gone missing, and he wasn't here yet, which meant he was busy.

"Please don't tell me you're hit," she twisted to look over her shoulder better, and slipped off her mask and could see the shafts of two arrows sticking out of his white-armored back.

"I think one of them is through my lung," Sai gasped, his strained voice muffled by the red-striped animal mask.

 _Shit._ "Up," she said. Sakura pulled herself out from under him quickly, and got a shoulder up under one of his arms. Moving as fast as she could supporting him, they searched for better cover. She could deal with this, but she was going to need more than a few seconds. Even more, if the arrows were poisoned, or debris managed to get pushed into the wound.

High on an oak bough they hid, and Sai pulled out his ink jutsu scroll, lining out clones of them, along with six, huge, hastily-sketched lions, sending them off into the darkness. They were standing close, his hands on her shoulders, her back against the trunk, the dense leaves and branches near the treetop giving little room to maneuver. It wasn't much different from one of the positions they'd been in the night before, most of which was spent fucking on his apartment floor like it would be the last time.

Her blood ran cold, knowing how easily that could have come true. "Hold onto something, me, the tree, I don't care. I'm going to get those out. This is going to hurt." _A lot._

He made a noise of assent and gripped the branches behind her, his white-armored, black-gloved arms bracketing her head. She wanted to tell him to take his mask off, because it unnerved her trying to heal someone whose expression she couldn't monitor, but it was too damn dark anyway and she already knew this would hurt him more.

Sakura could feel and hear the enemy nin closing in, and wished she had some sort of clue where the hell Kakashi and Sasuke were. Her radio hadn't picked up their voices for almost ten minutes now - if either one of those two used lightning-based attacks, inevitably, they shorted them out. Probably dealing with the big guy she'd seen, or extracting the captive.

"The ink clones are down," Sai said. His whole body was shaking and his heart rate was up, as the pale green glow of her healing chakra sank into him. She worked the first arrow out, trying to heal the puncture wound as she drew it away from his flesh, past shirt and vest. This ate a lot more of her energy than she liked, but she knew if it came down to it she'd find enough chakra to put up some sort of a fight; and if she could get Sai back in the action, so much the better.

Below, she heard running feet, unfamiliar voices, then shouting, then screams, the ear-scouring chirp of Raikiri approaching fast. Sakura allowed herself a small sigh of relief, a white glow rushing beneath them and away, as Kakashi streaked by, annihilating the enemy archers before the bastards knew what hit them.

She continued working on Sai, and felt Sasuke's presence, before she saw or heard him in the branches below. "Almost done," she said, using extra care on the second arrow, which pressed between his right eighth and ninth ribs, definitely in his lower lung and possibly his liver.

Sai didn't faint when the second intact arrow scraped past his rib and out, followed by the blood her chakra pushed behind it, but he made some small noises into her shoulder she'd just as soon never hear again in this lifetime.

"What happened?" Sasuke's familiar cold voice from beneath them sounded vaguely accusatory. He crouched just behind her on a lower branch, and she wasn't about to turn around.

"You two got too far ahead and we were caught in a genjutsu. Then we were ambushed. Sai was hit," she said, as vague as possible, as she finished the job. She didn't report back to Uchiha Sasuke. "Did you find the boy?"

"I'm carrying him. Kakashi's cleaning up the rest." Their orders gave explicit directions on how they were to deal with the kidnappers and anyone caught assisting them. Kakashi would probably keep one of them alive for questioning.

She made one last pass over Sai's back, glad she couldn't really see the bloody rents in his armor, and hoping she'd been thorough enough that the scarring would be minimal. "Is the child going to need treatment, too?"

"I don't think so. He's drugged but not injured."

"I'll take a look at him in a moment." She moved to put her mask back in place, but Sai stopped her, catching her bloody-gloved hand. He slid aside his own mask, and pressed his mouth against hers long enough for her to taste copper and salt and then he jumped down, leaving her wide-eyed.

Frowning, she followed, seeing Sasuke's shadowy, blood-reeking form land next to Sai's. She couldn't help wondering if Sai had kissed her because Sasuke was watching, and tried to decide whether she should be irritated with him or not. She knew he wasn't beyond certain forms of male posturing, and it had had the distinct feeling of a display of possessiveness, over one of gratitude.

She didn't have time to think about it further. Kakashi appeared in front of them, his wolf mask spattered liberally with gore, along with the rest of his uniform, an unconscious enemy over his shoulder. Very little of the blood was his own, and as usual, he didn't even seem winded.

"Yo. Everyone in one piece?" he said, and they all shouted an affirmative. Sakura inwardly cringed at his loaded comment. He hadn't said outright that they had fucked up and forced him to pick up the slack. Yet. "Good. We'll talk about this later. Let's take this kid home."


End file.
